3 finalists named for Mannelly Award
Long snappers from Ohio St., Notre Dame, Iowa St. make the cut
The finalists for the first Patrick Mannelly Award, which goes to the top long snapper in major college football, are Ohio State’s Liam McCullough, Notre Dame’s John Shannon and Iowa State’s Steve Wirtel.
The award will be presented during a dinner and ceremony Dec. 14 at Bernie’s Book Bank in Lake Bluff. It’s the culmination of a year’s worth of work by former Bears long snapper Patrick Mannelly, NFL agent Kevin Gold and Chris Rubio, who directs the longest-running camp for long snappers.
“The most amazing things about all the kids, the 10 semifinalists and even the ones that were outside of that list, is how consistent they are,” Mannelly said. “From 1998, my rookie year, to what the long snapper has become now, all of these guys that are good, they are so consistent. It blows me out of the water, to be honest with you, how good these guys are.
“There is a stat that around 2004, I think it was 7 percent of the Division I schools gave out scholarships (to long snappers) and now it is close to 80 percent or above. Now, the kids understand it is a position. There are 32 of them in the NFL, and with the scholarships that are available in college, kids are starting to work at this craft when they’e 10 years old and they’re starting to master it. It’s helped the kicking game tremendously, it’s helped the punters and kickers. These kids now, you just don’t see bad snaps anymore.”
Gold and Rubio kicked around the idea of creating an award for long snappers. Considering there are awards for nearly every other position in college football, it made sense. They reached out to Mannelly during the holidays last year to see if he would like to be involved — and more importantly have the award named after him in recognition of the high level of performance he had at Duke and during 16 seasons and 245 games with the Bears.
Mannelly was all in, and they hooked up with Bernie’s Book Bank to help raise awareness and funding for the nonprofit organization dedicated to increasing book ownership for at-risk children.
A watch list was created before the season, and everyone involved was tracking performance. Only long snappers from FBS schools are eligible.
“You can kind of tell from a trained eye,” Mannelly said of the process of identifying the very best for consideration. “Everybody that is looking at them knows the position. It would be like an offensive lineman watching all the guards. You kind of know which ones are better. You start with, obviously, consistency and speed, accuracy, and then we evaluate athletic ability, running down the field. We also evaluate mentality, a big snap in a big situation in the game. Are they on point and on the money?”
The three men partnered with Pro Football Focus to add an element of unbiased grading to the process.
“That has become very valuable because they do a great job of fine-tuning where a guy missed — on the right chest plate, to the left hip,” Mannelly said. “It’s been a nice little mix between the (three of us) and PFF.”
Mannelly has always been drawn to the special teams phase of games but was even more tuned in this season.
“If I was walking around the house and I heard, ‘Fourth down,’ I turned right to the TV,” he said.
The winner will be voted on by a 16-person selection committee that includes Mannelly, former Bears kicker Robbie Gould, former Bears punter Brad Maynard, former Bears coach Dave Wannstedt (who coached special teams for the Buccaneers in 2013), and longtime NFL writer Rick Gosselin, who pioneered special teams rankings with a system that many teams and coaches adopted.
Shannon is from Lake Forest and played at Loyola Academy. Wirtel is from Orland Park and played at Mount Carmel. His brother John was with the Bears during training camp.
The award dinner will include a panel discussion with former Bears Olin Kreutz and Charles Tillman.